The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

What Jewish Looks Like by Liz Kleinrock and Caroline Kusin Pritchard, illustrated by Iris Gottlieb HarperCollins, 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rochelle Newman-Carrasco   Buy at Bookshop.org Both The Table of Contents and Introduction of the collective biography What Jewish Looks Like provide a road map for the way this much-needed book brings together a wide spectrum of individuals and organizations, identities and philosophies, beliefs, values, and causes. There are “Big Question” pages that add to the rich learning experience one can have with this book, no matter your own depth of involvement in all things Jewish. The authors do a good job of taking on the complexity of their topic. We are introduced to individuals and organizations in a thematic way. Tikkun Olam, for example, brings us those who are known for Repairing a Broken World. In this section alone we meet Jews from Ethopia, to Austria to Los Angeles, California. A chapter named Adam Yachid, Unique Value of Every

Trajectory by Cambria Gordon Scholastic Press, 2024 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Rochelle Newman-Carrasco Buy at Bookshop.org When we first meet our protagonist, 17-year-old Eleanor, it’s a Friday night in 1942. Her mom expects her daughter to help with the Shabbos meal. This means Eleanor will have to put away her magazine, which is really being used to hide her math book. Young Eleanor has named Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom she shares a name, as her guardian angel and often uses her quotes to summon confidence. At school, the name Nervous Nellie stuck. And, the fact is, Eleanor is often scared. Her family in Poland is a constant worry. And her passion for mathematics is dampened because she believes she was responsible for her father, a brilliant and renowned mathematician, having a stroke. How could she possibly pursue a math career when her father is no longer able to function in this arena? Still, she is accidentally identified as a math genius and recruited to be one of a smal